Businesses are fast realising the power of ERP solutions, says Director SAP

SAP Asia Private Limited has recently unveiled plans to launch its internationally accredited certification programme, eAcademy in Pakistan. This online portal allows users to obtain certifications for SAP software that are commonly used in business functions such as financial accounting, management accounting, human capital management, supply chain management and enterprise process integration.
More than 140,000 individuals across the globe have obtained certifications through eAcademy to date. The launch of this service in Pakistan may herald new opportunities for aspiring IT professional in the country.
BR Research recently caught up with SAP Director, channel business Nitin Gangla, to gain insights regarding eAcademy and other developments at the company. The following text presents selected excerpts from this meeting:
BR Research: Please tell us more about eAcademy and the factors behind its conceptualisation.
Nitin Gangla: The portfolio of SAP products and solutions has grown exponentially. This could have been possible partly due to the organic growth of SAP's own research and development projects along with a series of acquisitions by the company. As a consequence, there is a heightened need to raise awareness about the company's products and services.
In addition to this, customers and partners alike need to be educated about the functions and methodologies of these offerings. These emerging needs are the main motivation behind the decision to move to the eAcademy programme as a standardised platform for educating internal staff, partners, customers and other stakeholders.
SAP has a truly global presence and the company's offerings are used in geographically dispersed locations. For this reason, reaching all relevant stakeholders is a major challenge, which the company is surmounting with the help of this online portal.
BRR: What benefits can customers and partners derive from eAcademy?
NG: There are many different resources available through this platform, using which customers and partners can learn about the functionality of different products. They can learn about different offerings and take web assessments to gauge their learning.
They can gain valuable insights about positioning and marketing different offerings as well as about how to deploy these. The portal provides secure access to users and provides comprehensive coverage of all but the most technical subjects relating to SAP.
BRR: What are the infrastructural requirements for eAcademy in Pakistan? What efforts have been made to establish these so far?
NG: At the moment SAP is identifying different organisations that have the requisite infrastructure and reasonably trained teaching staff from among existing partners as well as universities and other educational institutions. SAP intends to partner with such institutions to market these education options on the web to prospective customers.
BRR: What is the response of the local market to eAcademy so far?
NG: The response has been great; however, SAP's process of qualifying partners is extremely stringent and exhaustive. We have requirements in terms of infrastructure, knowledge as well as commitment to the protection of intellectual property. For this reason, the process of finalising partners for this initiative will take some time.
BRR: Local businesses often shy away from the use of automated services which increase disclosure and transparency. How does SAP intend to tackle this technology-averseness?
NG: Reluctance to step in to a computerised environment is a global phenomenon, especially among small businesses. SAP has overcome similar challenges to become the largest enterprise service provider to small and medium enterprises world-wide.
We cater out-of-the-box solutions which address all needs of SMEs from administrative requirements to gauging consumer attitudes. In our experience, we have found that growing companies with strong revenue growth and expansion plans often run into bottlenecks in their processes and other impediments to growth in the form of limitations of manual operations and oversight. We provide these companies with the ability to scale their businesses with precise solutions that exactly suit their requirements.
Manual systems have limitations which are irrelevant to SAP solutions. A company can go from processing one thousand invoices in a day to ten thousand invoices per day and it's all the same for the SAP solution. So as companies reach that critical scale, they have to adopt such solutions to maintain their growth trajectory. Of course, the more progressive businesses don't wait till that point and readily harness the power of technology.
BRR: Many local software manufacturers are cropping up in addition to the existing players in this industry. How does SAP plan to fend against the rising level of competition?
NG: Today there is competition in virtually every sector of the market. But, we are not threatened by any competitors, just as we are not a threat to any of them. As business leaders in the market we add to the experience and expertise of the entire market. Customers choose SAP products and services because of the benefits that they derive out of them for their businesses. We have experienced 30-40 percent growth in Pakistan on an annual basis, which is in line with the company's growth in the region. The field is continuously evolving and expanding and that is the perspective from which SAP views this market.
BRR: Please tell us more about the presence of SAP in Pakistan.
NG: Over the last two years, our customer base in the country has increased by more than 50 percent. In fact, three years back we had had 30 customers in the country whereas now we have about 150 customers, so we have grown five folds over the past three years.
BRR: What do you consider to be in store for SAP in Pakistan in the near future?
NG: There are currently about 50,000 registered companies in Pakistan of which only about one thousand are currently using any form of automated systems. Out of roughly 300 companies that are using ERP systems, 150 are existing customers of SAP.
The remaining 700 companies are running local software and solutions which are usually uni-function systems. For example a company may be running sales monitoring system or a distribution management system. But these are not inter-linked with other functions of the business. Such companies represent the immediate target market for SAP in Pakistan.
Our aim is to approach these 700 companies and show them the benefits of SAP solutions. Their existing solutions can help them churn out financial statements but cannot provide holistic oversight of inventories, human resources, sales and supply chain variables.
And then, there is the virgin market of 49,000 registered companies that can harness the strength of SAP to scale their businesses to the next level. This represents an immense opportunity for us as well as existing and potential customers and partners.
BRR: What are the key challenges that SAP faces in Pakistan?
NG: IT budgets of companies have been impacted by two main factors over recent times, here and in most other parts of the world: First, growth in revenues has not matched up to the expectations of most businesses in recent times and secondly, the overall cost of doing business has also been on a rising trend for most businesses.
While such an environment leaves businesses apprehensive towards new investments or expenses in the upgradation of systems, we are successfully demonstrating to firms the true value of our solutions especially in times of crisis.
A project that would otherwise have taken two years to go from conceptualisation to implementation can be set up in six months with the right choice of enabling technology. Such solutions help curb costs by 30-40 percent for firms. That's what real savings are about.
Companies are realising that the swiftly changing economic realities of the market place mandate what businesses utilise systems that improve efficiency and provide key insights of the internal and external dynamics affecting firms today.
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